It looks like a German online store has let slip how much the 32-core AMD Threadripper 2990X processor will cost, with a now-deleted page listing it for €1,509 (around $1,700, £1,300, AU$2,300).

The store in question is Cyperport, and if its price is correct, it means that AMD will once again be ruthless with its pricing compared to its competitor, Intel.

While the price is still a lot for a CPU, it could only end up being around $700 (£300, AU$900) more expensive than AMD’s flagship Ryzen Threadripper 1950Xfrom last year. That came with 16-cores and 32 threads, compared to the Threadripper 2990X’s 32-cores and 64 threads. That’s quite an upgrade considering the potential price difference

Taking the fight to Intel

If the AMD Threadripper 2990X does come out at this sort of price, it will once again put pressure on Intel, which usually offers much more expensive CPUs. The AMD Threadripper 2990X would actually be cheaper than Intel’s 18-core Intel i9-7980XE, which costs $1,999 (about £1,480, AU$2,510).

If the price and specs are correct, the AMD Threadripper 2990X will easily outperform that chip. Intel is also working on a 28-core processor to release later this year, and while that could outperform the upcoming Threadripper thanks to higher clock speeds, it’s also likely to be a lot more expensive.

We’re loving the competition between Intel and AMD lately, and it’s great to see that AMD is apparently sticking to its method of selling high performance processors for (relatively) low prices. Hopefully AMD will officially reveal the Ryzen Threadripper 2990X, including its price, soon.

I concentrated on the motherboards noted here: Ryzen™ Threadripper™ Processors | AMD and there were a few of points that I noted immediately.

(1). AMD Users who would like to take advantage of AMD lead in OpenCL Compute performance and populate the highlighted motherboards with the maximum possible number of RX Vega 64 8GB AIB cards that are available today are in for some problems.

It looks like the PCIEx16 slots on those motherboards are all spaced assuming 2 slot high GPUs whereas all of the available AMD Vega 64 take ~ 2.5 to 3 slot high.

If AMD & AIB partners cannot work together with their GPU partners to produce sub 2.5 slot high RX Vega 64 could they at least work with the motherboard manufacturers to space those PCIex16 slots further apart so that users could populate those boards with 4x RX Vega64 2.5/3 slot high GPU's?.

Sure the motherboard gets taller possibly but really ... the case manufacturers would provide solutions for that if given warning.

Even though I do not like the power consumption of the Vega 64 cards, and it would mean additional power supplies I could put up with it.

The > 2 slot high is the problem. It restricts number of them I can fit on any motherboard I have right now to 1 versus 3 R9 Nano/Fury X directly on my existing motherboards and another 2 R9 Nano via mining adapters plus an additional R9 Nano one on a Thunderbolt 2 eGPU making a total of 6 GPU connected at most.

(2). There is the possibility of using additional high quality ( and expensive ...) PCIex16 shielded passive risers to attempt a vertical GPU mount in attempt to fit more GPU inside the PC case but but there is a disadvantage with using these that I found recently when I was looking at that option. The additional length of the PCIe riser connection can cause the PCIe link to drop run at reduced bandwidth. Even though the motherboard bandwidth was set at PCIe3.0x8 in BIOS in a recent experiment I ran, I noticed that the the AMD Radeon Settings reported that the GPU (XFX R9 Nano) was in fact running at PCIe 2.0x8 speed. I ran a few benchmarks on the R9 Nano running with and without the PCIe Riser and it did show lower benchmark performance running with the Riser. Although I have found that the speed of the PCIe link does not matter with some OpenCL Benchmarks this reduced PCIe bandwidth will be a problem in terms of data transfer from and to the GPU VRAM memory.

(3). I see a distinct lack of Thunderbolt Support. I do not see mention of Thunderbolt headers on these motherboards. That could be one way to max out on the number of attached GPU on your system. Yes it does require purchase of additional Thunderbolt 3 - eGPU box but there are some great examples from Akitio that are 'affordable'.

Another approach ... if it is too difficult to space the PCIex16 connectors wider on these Threadripper boards would be to provide thunderbolt headers near each slot so option to use Thunderbolt 3.0 expansion card is there.

I understand there are USB3.1 and M.2 connectors and they may have chance of eGPU solution, but there are many Thunderbolt eGPU Solutions available now and they work for sure.

I really wish the loss of those connections could be allowed for by having 'mirrored connectors' made available elsewhere on the motherboard so you can take the signals out if they get physically blocked by GPU's. Neither the Thunderbolt 2.0 card nor the mining adapter outputs need to go directly out of the rear of a PC case.

(5). I do not know if any of the AMD motherboard manufacturers do this in BIOS but please consider making it possible to turn PCIe connections 'off' so that it is not necessary to physically disconnect GPU from a slot. To explain. on a motherboard with 3 PCIe16 slots the bandwidth choice is something like 1 GPU connected at PCIe3.0x16, or 2 GPU connected at PCIe3.0x8, PCIe3.0x8 or 3 GPU connected at PCIe 3.0x8, PCIe3.0x4, Pcie3.0x4. It would be great to have some way to 'switch off' PCIe connectors so you can 'electrically disconnect' the GPUs rather than have to physically remove them. This would be very handy in GPU benchmarking for example.

Yes, all of the AIB Vega 64 are massive in length, height and width. They are also heavy because they need large heat sinks to cope with the power dissipation. Many include a support bracket just to cope with the weight of the heatsink.

Many reviewers say do not go near Reference Vega 64 because they throttle back so much and are so loud. If you buy one you do not get the performance from the card unless you remove the shroud and either fit AIO cooler or Waterblock. Only recommended Reference Vega 64 is the Liquid Version. It performs ~ GTX1080 level but is still ~ 30% slower than GTX1080Ti. However the AIO cooler adds complexity in practice and difficult to fit more than one in many PC cases. In any case that card is EOL.

Even trying to get an aftermarket Vega 56 that fits in 2 slot high is difficult. They are all at least 2.2 slots high. There was one actually available at 2 slots high - The PowerColor Red Dragon Vega 56 but it EOLed very quickly. I saw one very basic video review but not enough information to make purchase decision. That card uses a very short R9 Nano style PCB with a smaller VRM, and I think what may have happened is PowerColor may have decided they might sell better in the Powercolor RXVega 56 Nano cooler with smaller form factor.

There are a number of > 2 slot high GTX 1080/1080Ti but...there are plenty of aftermarket 2 slot high as well.Go look up the Zotac GTX 1080Ti mini which is not that much bigger than an R9 Nano if you take a look at it but gives ~ 2.30 x the performance in gaming. If you look at it the Nvidia GTX 1080 needs ~ 180W and the GTX1080Ti only needs ~ 250W. This is why they they can be 2 slots high.

AMD GPU power consumption situation is not good. Did you know that the RX580s have a power requirement almost as high as a GTX1080?

However OpenCL support is still better than Nvidia but I think Nvidia are catching up with that. I have not seen the latest information - I need to check more up to date results, but the GTX 1080 was starting to look pretty good.

Its not just Miners who will be interested in MultiGPU.

AMD did lots of work on Blender 2.79 and have improved the performance of GPU and MultiGPU rendering significantly for GCN cards apart from GCN1.0. So content creators who are interested in Threadripper for Multi CPU rendering will also be interested in Blender for Multi GPU rendering as well.

AMD ROCm makes use of Heterogeneous Compute to allow OpenCL programming on Multiple GCN GPU (note - GCN1.0 cards not included). The speed up possible with this is astounding in many algorithms.

There are many applications applications and situations where an AMD User would likely want multiple AMD GPU's on one of those Threadripper Motherboards.Since the Target Market is "Content Creators" - I think that should include people working on projects who may not be able to afford or need workstation level / professional GPU.

If you can't fit 4 AMD Vega 56 or Vega 64 you can definitely fit 4 Nvidia GTX 1080 or 1080Ti with decent coolers and you need much lower power supply requirement to do it.

Sure I could purchase reference cards and put them on waterblocks, but I do not want the work involved to do that. However as soon as I do that I void my GPU warranty.

If I pay full retail for the card I want the warranty otherwise I may as well purchase used. I like AIO cooling on CPU and maybe 1 GPU it's o.k.but more than 1 or 2 AIO GPU probably difficult to fit in PC case. I would guess that putting RX Vega 64 on proper watercooling loop would help reduce power consumption and improve performance but it is lots of work to build and maintain. .

Which article - do you mean MultiGPU Rendering Information or a review where RX Vega 64 reference card / AIB Gigabye RX Vega 64 were rated do not buy by reviewer?

I am writing an article at the moment regarding my latest experience running MultiGPU Blender Rendering on Blender 2.79b versus 2.78c. I may post something directly to this forum in a few weeks if you are interested.